DECAY OP SALMON. 123 



latter being a species kept stationary by anchorage, and 

 ordinarily reaching some hundreds of feet beyond low 

 water) is an invention only about thirty or forty years 

 old, as regards at least the places in Scotland where it is 

 now practised ; while, as regards England and Ireland, it 

 is of still more recent date. It is not only novel, it may 

 be said to exist only through the omission or ignorance 

 of the Legislature. The chief aim of legislation on the 

 subject, both in England and Scotland, from Magna 

 Charta downwards, has been to prevent the raising of 

 " standing-gear" in " the run of the fish ;" but this pro- 

 hibition did not extend to the sea-coast, partly, perhaps, 

 because that was not then known to be " the run of the 

 fish," and partly because no sort of engine had at that 

 time been invented capable of standing and acting effec- 

 tively in the open sea. It has since, however, been dis- 

 covered, — and most diligently has the discovery been 

 put to use, — that the sea-coast is almost as much the 

 course of the fish as is the channel of the river or estuary. 

 The salmon returning to the fresh water does not lie off" 

 in mid-ocean, and then, as with a needle and compass, 

 steer right into the river's mouth. It feels, or, as Sir 

 Humphry Davy expressed it to the Committee of 1824, 

 scents its way along the shore for many miles. The 

 distance from the river of which they are in search, or 

 from any river, at which salmon begin, in nautical 

 phrase, to " hug the shore," is greater than seems gener- 

 ally believed, even by those who have paid some atten- 

 tion to the subject. A sail along almost any portion of 

 the coast of Scotland — say that long stretch from Buchan- 

 ness to Fortrose — wiU show that the shore is draped with 



